Why American Apples Just Got Banned in Europe

Back
in 2008, European Food Safety Authority began pressing the chemical
industry to provide safety information on a substance called
diphenylamine, or DPA. Widely applied to apples after harvest, DPA
prevents "storage scald"—brown spots that "becomes a concern when fruit
is stored for several months," according to Washington State University, reporting from the heartland of industrial-scale apple production.

DPA isn't believed to be harmful on its own. But it has the potential
to break down into a family of carcinogens called nitrosamines—not
something you want to find on your daily apple. And that's why European
food safety regulators wanted more information on it. The industry came
back with just "one study that detected three unknown chemicals on
DPA-treated apples, but it could not determine if any of these
chemicals, apparently formed when the DPA broke down, were
nitrosamines," Environmental Working Group shows in an important new report.
(The EFSA was concerned that DPA could decay into nitrosamines under
contact with nitrogen, a ubiquitous element, EWG notes.) Unsatisfied
with the response, the EFSA banned use of DPA on apples in 2012. And in
March, the agency the slashed the tolerable level of DPA on imported apples to 0.1 parts per million, EWG reports.

What does that have to do with the US-grown apples now gleaming, spot-free, on supermarket shelves? According to EWG,
in 2010, when the US Department of Agriculture last looked for DPA
residues on US-grown apples, it found them on 80 percent of samples.
Average reading: 0.42 ppm, or about four times the new European limit.
In other words, the apple on your countertop would likely be deemed
unsafe by European authorities.

So what's our own Environmental Protection Agency's take on
DPA-coated apples? It green-lights residues of up to 10 ppm—100 times
the new European norm—and hasn't reconsidered its position on the
chemical since 1998, EWG reports. Nor does it have plans to do so in the
future. Here's EWG:

Earlier this year three scientists in the U.S. EPA Office of
Pesticides, which is tasked with pesticide safety reviews, told EWG they
were unaware of the new European ban and import restrictions. They said
the agency had no plans to reassess DPA safety in light of the European
actions.

So do DPA-treated apples present real health risks? I don't know—and
neither, apparently, do food safety authorities on either side of the
Atlantic. Until they learn more, Europe has decided that the public
shouldn't be gobbling up DPA along with their daily fruit. For Americans
wanting the same level of protection, EWG suggests choosing organic
apples when possible.

When you sit back and think how utterly defiled this whole planet is; from the air we breathe, the "food" we eat, the water we drink and everything else in between, it makes you hella angry, sad and powerless all at the same damn time

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